


Call of Duty

by Mad_Maudlin



Series: The Annie Diaries [3]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Curtain Fic, Friendship, Gen, protector - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy has an unexpected heart-to-heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call of Duty

The chore chart was Kate's idea. Well, technically, it was originally Cassie's, since she'd been the one to make the stickers-and-puff-paint version that used to hang up at Bishop Publishing _so it doesn't smell like_ boys _in here all the time_ \--but that had been a long time ago, and nobody living aboard _Annie_ had any glitter. (That they'd confess to.) 

In the immediate sense the idea was Kate's, in that she was one who asked, "Why is it that Teddy's always doing the dishes around here?"

Everyone looked at Teddy, who was in fact at that moment collecting dirty dishes off the table. "Somebody has to," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but it shouldn't always be you," she pointed out. "We should have a rotation."

"Excellent plan," Loki muttered. "You go first."

"Are you talking like the chore chart?" Billy asked, with a pinched face. "This isn't summer camp, Kate."

"I know that," she said. "But that doesn't change the fact that it's not Teddy's job to do the dishes for the rest of us."

"I don't mind," he protested, stacking the plates so I didn't have to make eye contact with anybody.

"See?" Loki said. "Stop manufacturing problems, Bishop."

"I don't care if you don't mind," Kate said, ignoring Loki entirely. "We've been taking advantage of you and it's not far."

"Will it make you feel better if we make a chore chart?" Billy asked wearily.

"It'll make me feel better if we observe more of an equal division of labor" Kate said.

"More to the point," America asked, "will it make you shut up?"

"I said I don't mind, okay?" Teddy said, slightly louder. 

"It's the principle of the thing!" 

("Is summer camp anything like boot camp?" Noh-Varr whispered to America, who ignored him.)

-\\-\\-\\-\\-\\-

No actual chore chart ever materialized, but the following night Kate chased Teddy out of the kitchen after dinner and noisily did dishes for over an hour. At this point he was so accustomed to having the galley to himself after dinner that he was at loose ends; he ended up in the common room, watching Billy and Loki talk about magic in allusions and elliptical sentences. Not that he would've understood any of it if they'd been speaking English, of course. Teddy didn't consider himself the kind of person who craved privacy or anything, but _Annie_ wasn't exactly a big ship, and being cooped up with five other people (three of whom were strangers) was surprisingly exhausting at times. 

The night after that they got pizza, and then the night after _that_ there were demons, and by the third night Teddy had been hoping that Kate had maybe forgotten the whole thing. He collected the plates as usual and started scraping them off into the Waste Recycler (a machine that was connected to the Nutrional Extruder with several tubes of various sizes, and Teddy was emphatically ignoring the obvious conclusions related to that because he wanted to sleep at night.)

About five minutes later, however, Noh-Varr came slinking into the galley. _Slink_ was really the only appropriate word for it; his shoulders were hunched and he seemed to be subconsciously hugging the wall as if braced for an attack. "Did you, uh, need something?" Teddy asked him, chiseling away at a crust of dried artificial cheese-stuff with a fork.

"Kate has informed me it is my turn to do the dishes," Noh-Varr announced. 

"Oh." Teddy looked at the pile, and then at Noh-Varr's face. He was pretty sure it wasn't possible to be any more unenthused about something. "I, uh, you realize I got this, right?"

"You are welcome to tell her that," he said pointedly. 

Teddy winced. "Yeah. I probably should." Before she tried to make an actual chore chart....

Noh-Varr didn't attempt to help or interfere in any way; he perched on the counter next to the sink, apparently content to watch. Teddy did his best to ignore him, awkward as it was in the confined space, and focused instead on the routine of scrubbing and scraping and the weird fake-apple-scented dish soap that somebody had picked up at a dollar store in Spokane. All the synthetic dairy in the world couldn't stand up to enough hot water and and a Brillo pad, and he set up the plates on the rack to drip dry.

After a few minutes, though, Noh-Varr said quietly, "You enjoy this, don't you?"

Teddy shrugged. "I...guess?" he admitted. "It's kinda relaxing. And quiet." 

"You enjoy taking care of people."

Noh-Varr wasn't actually looking at him, which was about the only thing that saved the comment from being unbearably creepy. He was staring off into the middle distance, and Teddy got the feeling he wasn't actually talking about doing the dishes. He cleared his throat anyway. "My mom, she kind of drilled it into me—she worked these crazy hours, and it was just her and me, so I had to do my part, you know? 'Cause if I didn't do something, it didn't get done. So...dishes."

Despite the fact that Noh-Varr's entire experience with Teddy's mom was the extradimensional parasite version, he nodded like this made sense. "The Supreme Intelligence named me the Protector. I neglected to ask at the time, protector of whom, or from what." He looked down at his hands. "I tried to be worthy of the name anyway. I tried to live up to the examples set for me, by Mar-Vell, by the Avengers. I thought if I simply went through the motions, perhaps one day I would feel...something."

Suddenly watching the Loki-and-Billy Light Show and Cuss Word Extravaganza seemed like a fabulous idea. Teddy tried to look very invested in the burned-on cheese in the frying pan even as he asked, "Did, uh, did it work?"

Noh-Varr snorted. "I've been banned from a planet, Teddy, what do you think?"

"Right. Stupid question." He rinsed the pan, trying to think of what else he could say. 

"It's not a facade for you, though," Noh-Varr continued. "You, Kate, America...You care so easily and so deeply. I wonder sometimes...but I suppose it's a moot point."

And they probably should've just left it there. Teddy probably should've just left it and gone upstairs and watched Billy and Loki explode things together. (Tonight might be the night that it happened on purpose, even.) But something had been bothering him for weeks at this point, and he couldn't help but ask, "So why're you here?"

Noh-Varr blinked at him.

"I mean, why are we were?" Teddy clarifed. "On your ship. If it's not...duty, or whatever it is you think we've got that you don't."

He expected another wiseass answer in the vein of _hot make-outs,_ honestly, but Noh-Varr actually smiled wryly. "It seems you need a protector after all," he said, and hopped off the counter while Teddy dried his hands. "If you intend to discuss chores with Kate right away, I think I'll be spending the evening in the cockpit."

"Probably a good choice," Teddy admitted. He let the rest of the conversation slide, for now.

-\\-\\-\\-\\-\\-

The day after that, he unilaterally put up a sticky note on the front of the fridge that said DISH DUTY: TEDDY: FOREVER, and nobody challenged him for it again.


End file.
